The present invention relates to paging systems. More particularly, it relates to an interface between existing telephone systems and pager transmitters.
A variety of paging systems useful in institutions such as hospitals, schools, industrial plants or large catering facilities use a manual dispatch operator When a telephone call is received the operator activates the appropriate transmitter to page a particular individual carrying a corresponding receiver Such systems are costly in terms of requiring attendance by an operator. Further, paging errors may be made, resulting in inordinate delays in paging and messages not reaching the intended recipient.
More recently automatic paging systems such as the Motorola MODAX.RTM. 100 On-Site Telephone Interconnected Radio Paging Terminal have become available. These types of systems connect to a standard telephone company trunk or selector level input via an interface for dial pulse operation. Thus, while these systems provide direct dialing of a pager, they are relatively complex and costly. Installation of one of these systems is comparable in cost and complexity to having an additional telephone system. Further, these systems are generally complex and use sophisticated digital signal processing.
Thus, a need exists for a simple, low cost approach to direct access paging through a telephone system.